The Bridesmaid's Baby

‘I haven’t had a proper chance to say hello,’ he said easily. ‘I wanted to know how you are.’

Lucy gulped. ‘I…I’m fine.’ She was grateful that the darkness disguised the flush in her face, but it took a moment to remember to add, ‘Thanks.’ And, a frantic breath later, ‘How about you, Will?’

‘Not bad.’ He gave her another smile and the skin around his eyes crinkled, then he shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets and stood in front of her with his long legs comfortably apart, shoulders wide. So tall and big he made her shiver.

She managed to ask, ‘Are you still working in Mongolia?’

‘Actually, no.’ There was a slight pause and the tiniest hint of an edgy chuckle. ‘I was there long enough. Decided it’s time for a change, so I’m going to look around for somewhere new.’

The news didn’t surprise Lucy but, after so many years, she’d finally got used to Will’s absence. When he was safely overseas she could almost forget about him. Almost.

Without quite meeting her gaze, Will said, ‘Gina tells me you’ve bought a house.’

Lucy nodded. ‘I bought the old Finnegan place at the end of Wicker Lane.’ She shot him a rueful smile. ‘It’s a renovator’s delight.’

‘Sounds like a challenge.’

‘A huge one.’

He lifted his gaze to meet hers and a glimmer of amusement lingered in his eyes. ‘You were always one for a challenge.’

Lucy wasn’t quite sure what Will meant by this. He might have been referring to the way she’d worked hard at her studies during their long ago friendship at university. Or it could have been a direct reference to the fact that she’d once been engaged to his chick-magnet older brother.

She tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I haven’t managed many renovations on the house yet. But at least there’s plenty of room for my surgery and a nice big yard for the dogs.’

‘How many dogs do you have now?’

She blinked with surprise at his unexpected question. ‘Just the two still.’

‘Seamus and Harry.’

‘That’s right.’

A small silence ticked by and Lucy felt awkward. She knew that if she’d met any other old friend from her schooldays she would have offered an invitation to come back to her place. They could have shared a simple meal—probably pasta and a salad—eating in the kitchen, which she had at least partially renovated.

They could open a bottle of wine, catch up on old times, gossip about everything that had happened in the intervening years.

But her history with this man was too complicated. To start with, she’d never been able to completely snuff out the torch she carried for him, but that wasn’t her only worry. Eight years ago, she’d made the terrible mistake of getting involved with his brother.

This was not the time, however, on the eve of Mattie and Jake’s wedding, to rehash that sad episode.

From the darkness in the tree-lined creek behind the church a curlew’s mournful cry drifted across the night and, almost as if it was a signal, Will took a step back. ‘Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘I dare say you won’t be able to avoid it.’

Heavens, why had she said that? It sounded churlish. To make up for the gaffe, Lucy said quickly before he could leave, ‘I’m so happy for Mattie. Jake seems like a really nice guy.’

‘He’s terrific,’ Will agreed. ‘And I’ll have to hand it to Mattie. She succeeded in winning him when many others have failed.’

‘Jake obviously adores her.’

‘Oh, yeah, he’s totally smitten.’ Will looked suddenly uncomfortable and his shoulders lifted in an awkward shrug.

Lucy suspected this conversation was getting sticky for both of them.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said gently. ‘You’d better go. Your mother will have dinner waiting.’

He chuckled. ‘That sounds like something from the dim dark ages when we were at high school.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, but he had already turned and was walking towards the truck.

He opened the squeaky door, then turned again and they both exchanged a brief wave before they climbed into their respective vehicles.

Lucy heard the elderly truck’s motor rise in a harsh rev, then die down into a throaty lumbering growl. Will backed out of the parking spot and drove down the street and as she turned the key in her ute’s ignition, she watched the truck’s twin red tail lights growing smaller.

She remembered the times she’d driven with Will in that old truck of his father’s, bumping over paddocks or down rough country lanes. Together they’d gone fossicking for sapphires, hunting for specks of gold down in the creek. At other times she’d urged him to help her to search for a new sub-species of fish.

They’d been great mates back then, but those days when Lucy had first moved to Willowbank with her dad after her parents’ messy divorce felt like so very long ago now.

She had been sixteen and it was a horrible time, when she was angry with everyone. She’d been angry with her mother for falling in love with her boss, angry with her dad for somehow allowing it to happen, and angry with both of them for letting their marriage disintegrate in a heartbeat.

Most of all Lucy had been angry that she’d had to move away from Sydney to Willowbank. She’d hated leaving her old school and her friends to vegetate in a docile country town.

But then she’d met Will, along with Gina, Tom and Mattie and she’d soon been absorbed into a happy circle of friends who’d proved that life in the country could be every bit as good as life in the city.

OK, maybe her love of Willowbank had a lot to do with her feelings for Will, but at least she’d never let on how much she’d adored him. Instead, she’d waited patiently for him to realise that he loved her. When he took too long she’d taken matters into her own hands and it had all gone horribly wrong.

But it was so, so unhelpful to be thinking about that now.

Even so, Lucy was fighting tears as she reversed the ute. And, as she drove out of town, she was bombarded by bittersweet, lonely memories.

CHAPTER TWO

THE impact of the explosion sent Will flying, tossed him like a child’s rag toy and dumped him hard. He woke with his heart thudding, his nerves screaming as he gripped at the bed sheets.

Bed sheets?

At first he couldn’t think how he’d arrived back in the bedroom of his schooldays, but then he slowly made sense of his surroundings.

He was no longer in Mongolia.

He was safe.

He wished it had all been a nightmare, but it was unfortunately true. He’d been conducting a prospecting inspection of an old abandoned mine when it had blown without warning. By some kind of miracle he’d escaped serious injury, but his two good friends were dead.

That was the savage reality. He’d been to the funerals of both Barney and Keith—one in Brisbane and the other in Ottawa.

He’d been to hell and back sitting in those separate chapels, listening to heartbreaking eulogies and wondering why he’d been spared when his friends had so not deserved to die.